The Irony in Trifles

Trifles is a play by Susan Glaspell were an investigation of the murder of Mr. Wright takes place. In the short one-act-play, Mr. Wright’s wife, Mrs. Wright, is a suspect for the murder of her husband. While the neighbor, Mr. Hale, described the scene when he found out that Mr. Wright was murdered the only thing that came to my mind was: “How could his wife just sit there and not do nothing?” This was the first indication that made me suspicious of Mrs. Wright. As the sheriff, the attorney and the neighbor all go upstairs to investigate the crime scene we presence the women downstairs having an investigation of their own.

Mrs. Peters (sheriff’s wife) and Mrs. Hale (neighbor’s wife) were going through Mrs. Wright’s stuff looking for important things to take to her. As they go through, they start talking about Mrs. Wright’s life and wondering who killed her husband. Mrs. Hale starts to regret not visiting Mrs. Wright, as she was her neighbor, therefore we see this character evolving in the play, going from one opinion to another. As they continues to investigate the case, the men think they are talking about “trifles” referring to meaningless conversations and therefore ignore their opinions. Nonetheless, as the women continue to look around, firstly they found a quilt to which they thought Mrs. Wright was practicing a knot. Second, they found a dead bird. Joining these evidences, they concluded that Mrs. Wright had killed her husband in response to him killing her bird.

Once the women find out the murderer, they decide to hide the evidence from the men, as they felt sympathy for Mrs. Wright’s life. Here we see Mrs. Peters, the sheriff’s wife who was “married to the law”, evolving by going against her beliefs and not turning in the evidence. I think that during the play we can see the discrimination against women and how society didn’t value their opinion. The play itself is an irony, as the title Trifles indicates something of little value (referring to the women’s opinion) when this thing of “little value” was actually the solution to the case.

___________________________________________

If you don't feel like reading, check out this video were they presented the play Trifles in NYC: